This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all benefits accruing under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7119 from an application for APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DEBUGGING IN SCANNING AND PRINTING SYSTEM earlier filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on of Aug. 30, 1997 and there duly assigned Serial No. 44493/1997.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for debugging a scanning and printing system, and more particularly to a technique for debugging a scanning and printing system enabling effective detection of the cause of defects by replaying the job with the defects in those cases where the defects are generated in the scanning and printing system and application programs, and by storing status messages relating to this operation, and by providing an operator with them.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, office automation facilities such as printers, scanners, etc., have widely been used. To extend their own functions, high performance office automation facilities have been developed. Accordingly, the manufacturing costs of the products increase. On the other hand, the economic burden on users can be lessened by integrating, for instance, a printer and a scanner which have separately been used. Such products are called scanning and printing systems.
In general, such a scanning and printing system includes a scanner, a printer, a modem, a computer, etc., and prints data scanned from the scanner or facsimile data transmitted from a different system via the modem using the printer, or stores the data on a hard disk in the computer. Therefore, the scanning and printing system has a facsimile function, printer function, scanner function, and copier function, etc.
As office automation facilities, such as the scanning and printing system, have been used widely and their functions are complicated in this manner, the burden on the manufacturer to manage defects generated while using the products has increased.
Generally, a user has had to explain the situation relating to the generation of defects to a serviceman in cases where software operations have defects in a scanning and printing system having various functions. Further, the serviceman has had to go through various complicated procedures such that an application program is obtained again and the generation of defects is repeated under the same circumstances as the circumstances with defects in those cases where the defects are generated in running an application program on a host computer connected to the scanning and printing system. Therefore, the serviceman has not been able to promptly correct the defects generated in the system.
Meanwhile, the techniques of monitoring, sensing and reporting the defects generated in systems have been vigorously studied according to technical trends toward automation and the following techniques have already been patented in the U.S.
First, U.S. Pat. No. 5,589,878 to Cortjens et al., entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD OF DETERMINING AN ERROR IN A VIDEO CONFERENCING SYSTEM CAMERAxe2x80x9d, discloses a method for controlling the operation of a camera by a controller, storing all the control signals generated during the operation of the camera, and performing the detection and correction of errors by using the stored signals later. However, in this case, all the signals generated by the camera are stored and managed, and thus a large amount of storage is required. This causes the cost to rise.
Second, U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,501 to Satomi et al., entitled xe2x80x9cFACSIMILE APPARATUSxe2x80x9d, discloses an apparatus for storing the name of stations which are far away and frequently communicated with, storing all the control processing signals generated in the case of communicating with these stations, and outputting the stored information if defects are generated in communicating with these stations. Therefore, U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,501 lessened a burden found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,589,878. However, U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,501 has a problem in that the cause of defects related to the whole facsimile system is not analyzed.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to enable the tracing of defects generated in a scanning and printing system.
It is another object of the present invention to provide the minimum needed memory space for tracing the defects.
It is still another object of the present invention to promptly correct the defects generated in the scanning and printing system.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a debugging device in an apparatus having a scanning and printing system includes: an input unit for inputting a defects tracing mode and selecting a function; a facsimile machine driving unit for driving a facsimile machine to transmit and receive facsimile data and for generating operating status messages of the facsimile machine; a printer driving unit for driving a printing unit to print data and for generating operating status messages of the printing unit; a storing unit for storing the generated status messages; and a processing unit for replaying a defects-generated job, storing the generated messages in the storing unit, and outputting the stored messages according to the selection of a function in the case of setting the defects tracing mode using the input unit.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a method of debugging in an apparatus having a scanning and printing function includes the steps of: generating status messages according to the running status of the scanning and printing system, ignoring the generated messages in cases where defects are not generated, storing the generated messages in a memory by setting a defects tracing mode in cases where defects are generated, and allowing an operator to access the messages if necessary.